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| A Woman's Directory For Travel and Life. WAVE Journey is your one stop online resource for women oriented businesses and services around the world. WAVE Journey is for every woman to enjoy. If you love to travel, cook, garden, read or revel in outdoor activities this website is for you. If you are looking to connect with other like-minded women or if you are interested in finding businesses or services that cater to women, WAVE Journey is your number one online resource. A Second Life for Food ~ Restaurateurs share their secrets for economizing during lean times Article by Nadia Arumugam, photos courtesy of Baltz & Co. |
| WAVE Journey |
| Women's Adventures, Vacations & Experiences ~ Your Journey Starts Here! |
Virtually every food now has a second life in chef Monica
Pope’s hands. Mushroom stems, once tossed into the
garbage, are whipped up into a mushroom pâté; broccoli
stalks, bare of their tender florets, are blitzed down to a
verdant pesto.
For restaurants, the trashcan is often the worst enemy of a
profitable bottom line, and keeping waste to a bare
minimum has always been a priority. But with food prices
rising incessantly and fewer customers, Pope, executive
chef at T’afia in Houston, has been especially scrupulous
about ensuring produce stretches as far as it will go.
In Berkeley, California, chef Marsha McBride of Café Rouge
is applying similar tactics. He concocts dishes to use up
scraps of vegetables normally deemed unpalatable.
“Cook anything long enough in garlic, onion and olive oil
and it will be delicious,” she said of the tough stems of
rainbow chard and chewy turnip greens.
Pope’s hands. Mushroom stems, once tossed into the
garbage, are whipped up into a mushroom pâté; broccoli
stalks, bare of their tender florets, are blitzed down to a
verdant pesto.
For restaurants, the trashcan is often the worst enemy of a
profitable bottom line, and keeping waste to a bare
minimum has always been a priority. But with food prices
rising incessantly and fewer customers, Pope, executive
chef at T’afia in Houston, has been especially scrupulous
about ensuring produce stretches as far as it will go.
In Berkeley, California, chef Marsha McBride of Café Rouge
is applying similar tactics. He concocts dishes to use up
scraps of vegetables normally deemed unpalatable.
“Cook anything long enough in garlic, onion and olive oil
and it will be delicious,” she said of the tough stems of
rainbow chard and chewy turnip greens.
Pope and McBride are certainly not alone in this crusade.
“As has always been the tradition, restaurateurs and chefs have always become most
creative during tough times,” said restaurant industry consultant Clark Wolf. “It’s going to
be a long time before we run out of new things and new parts of ingredients to try.”
Indeed, chefs coast to coast, whether in high-end restaurants or casual eateries, are using
every ounce of animal and vegetable. From pig ears to duck hearts, to vegetable stalks and
past-their-best fruit, foods that would have been thrown out in more prosperous times
now feature on menus.
At Dressler, the Michelin one-star eatery in New York City, diners have also been more
budget conscious, sticking to two-course meals, ordering two appetizers instead of a
starter dish and a main course and opting for less expensive wines.
Executive chef Polo Dobkin has become the master of re-creation in the kitchen. But he has
an advantage.
“Having three restaurants (under the same ownership) definitely helps us re-cycle
ingredients,” he said. Dobkin sends trimmings of expensive dayboat cod to the more casual
eatery, DuMont Burger, where the fish is transformed into a tempura-battered cod
sandwich.
But he’s aware that too many cost-cutting tactics could hurt the brand. “You have to be
careful to keep an eye on what your mission is,” he said. “You don’t want to appear as if
you are sacrificing quality, especially now, when its more important than ever to keep
customers coming back.”
For Amanda Cohen, chef-proprietor at new vegetarian restaurant Dirt Candy in New York
City, one of the biggest challenges is to order just enough ingredients for her diminutive 18-
seat eatery without wasting limited shelf life produce.
“Every day is a game, and sometimes we over order,” she said. “Also, there are certain
things that you just have to order by the caseload, and we can’t go through the cases fast
enough before they go bad.”
Rescue has come via a rather unexpected piece of equipment, a dehydrator, which
removes the liquid.
“When you see what it can do, it’s amazing. It preserves everything,” Cohen said, “but I
didn’t realize I’d be using it so soon and so much!” Indeed, on most days fruits and
vegetables like tomatoes, apples, beetroot and pears past their best, are sliced up and
thrown into the dehydrator, to produce the crunchy, wafer thin crisps that feature
prolifically in Cohen’s dishes.
Chef Orlando Hitzig at Mark and Orlando’s in Washington, DC, wants his customers to feel
they are getting extra value. He’s come up with an ingenious way to spoil them without
digging deep into his pocket. He serves up kitchen scraps. Every table gets a bread basket
accompanied by a sticky onion marmalade and red pepper butter concocted from the
vegetable remnants that would have otherwise gone to waste, or been added to the
stockpot.
Hitzig attributes his ability to keep a tight leash over what gets thrown out largely to the
fact that he has small team of dedicated chefs who share his culinary ethos. “Everybody
knows how much things cost, if they throw things away, they know that they’ve messed
up,” said Hitzig, “and if they were looking for a pay rise, they should look in the trash
because that’s probably where it went!”
Seamus Mullen, executive chef of the New York taparia Boqueria, orders in whole pigs. He
finds using every part of an ingredient is simply a welcome bonus of his of nose-to-tail
cuisine.
“For me its more the ethics of cooking,” said Mullen. “A pig has only two tenderloins. It
seems strange to order just 40 tenderloins—what about the other parts?”
The carcasses are butchered in-house, and as the menu changes weekly, every part of the
animal will eventually make its way onto the menu. The ears and tails are slowly cooked in
pig fat, then shredded and used in a salad. The head is used to make a terrine. The belly
and chops are brined, and the shoulders are cured in charcuterie preparations.
Andy Nusser at New York’s Casa Mono operates on similar principles, serving up hearts,
testicles, trotters and even cocks’ combs to adventurous diners. But key to making nose-to-
tail cuisine economically expedient is having the necessary butchery and culinary skills.
So Nusser had a butcher come in to instruct his kitchen crew.
“He gave us a great schooling that had us really committed to this process,” Nusser said.
“You have to know how to cook all the different parts—you can’t just grill a pig’s trotter!”
Nusser would know. After all, he serves up “everything but the oink!”
“As has always been the tradition, restaurateurs and chefs have always become most
creative during tough times,” said restaurant industry consultant Clark Wolf. “It’s going to
be a long time before we run out of new things and new parts of ingredients to try.”
Indeed, chefs coast to coast, whether in high-end restaurants or casual eateries, are using
every ounce of animal and vegetable. From pig ears to duck hearts, to vegetable stalks and
past-their-best fruit, foods that would have been thrown out in more prosperous times
now feature on menus.
At Dressler, the Michelin one-star eatery in New York City, diners have also been more
budget conscious, sticking to two-course meals, ordering two appetizers instead of a
starter dish and a main course and opting for less expensive wines.
Executive chef Polo Dobkin has become the master of re-creation in the kitchen. But he has
an advantage.
“Having three restaurants (under the same ownership) definitely helps us re-cycle
ingredients,” he said. Dobkin sends trimmings of expensive dayboat cod to the more casual
eatery, DuMont Burger, where the fish is transformed into a tempura-battered cod
sandwich.
But he’s aware that too many cost-cutting tactics could hurt the brand. “You have to be
careful to keep an eye on what your mission is,” he said. “You don’t want to appear as if
you are sacrificing quality, especially now, when its more important than ever to keep
customers coming back.”
For Amanda Cohen, chef-proprietor at new vegetarian restaurant Dirt Candy in New York
City, one of the biggest challenges is to order just enough ingredients for her diminutive 18-
seat eatery without wasting limited shelf life produce.
“Every day is a game, and sometimes we over order,” she said. “Also, there are certain
things that you just have to order by the caseload, and we can’t go through the cases fast
enough before they go bad.”
Rescue has come via a rather unexpected piece of equipment, a dehydrator, which
removes the liquid.
“When you see what it can do, it’s amazing. It preserves everything,” Cohen said, “but I
didn’t realize I’d be using it so soon and so much!” Indeed, on most days fruits and
vegetables like tomatoes, apples, beetroot and pears past their best, are sliced up and
thrown into the dehydrator, to produce the crunchy, wafer thin crisps that feature
prolifically in Cohen’s dishes.
Chef Orlando Hitzig at Mark and Orlando’s in Washington, DC, wants his customers to feel
they are getting extra value. He’s come up with an ingenious way to spoil them without
digging deep into his pocket. He serves up kitchen scraps. Every table gets a bread basket
accompanied by a sticky onion marmalade and red pepper butter concocted from the
vegetable remnants that would have otherwise gone to waste, or been added to the
stockpot.
Hitzig attributes his ability to keep a tight leash over what gets thrown out largely to the
fact that he has small team of dedicated chefs who share his culinary ethos. “Everybody
knows how much things cost, if they throw things away, they know that they’ve messed
up,” said Hitzig, “and if they were looking for a pay rise, they should look in the trash
because that’s probably where it went!”
Seamus Mullen, executive chef of the New York taparia Boqueria, orders in whole pigs. He
finds using every part of an ingredient is simply a welcome bonus of his of nose-to-tail
cuisine.
“For me its more the ethics of cooking,” said Mullen. “A pig has only two tenderloins. It
seems strange to order just 40 tenderloins—what about the other parts?”
The carcasses are butchered in-house, and as the menu changes weekly, every part of the
animal will eventually make its way onto the menu. The ears and tails are slowly cooked in
pig fat, then shredded and used in a salad. The head is used to make a terrine. The belly
and chops are brined, and the shoulders are cured in charcuterie preparations.
Andy Nusser at New York’s Casa Mono operates on similar principles, serving up hearts,
testicles, trotters and even cocks’ combs to adventurous diners. But key to making nose-to-
tail cuisine economically expedient is having the necessary butchery and culinary skills.
So Nusser had a butcher come in to instruct his kitchen crew.
“He gave us a great schooling that had us really committed to this process,” Nusser said.
“You have to know how to cook all the different parts—you can’t just grill a pig’s trotter!”
Nusser would know. After all, he serves up “everything but the oink!”
A specialist in nose-to-tail
cuisine, chef Seamus Mullen
of the New York City taparia
Boqueria specializes in
naturally economical
nose-to-tail cuisine. Here,
he butchers a whole pig.
cuisine, chef Seamus Mullen
of the New York City taparia
Boqueria specializes in
naturally economical
nose-to-tail cuisine. Here,
he butchers a whole pig.
Removing the head.
Removing the brain.
